Manila’s Best Caesar Salad

Titles are required to be short and pithy but what I’d really like to name this post is: Manila’s Best Caesar Salad In The Best Little Restaurant You Need To Know About.

As a writer, I quibble about long and short titles, but if there’s one thing I don’t waver on, it’s the value of a long memory. After all, some of my best meals are relived through pure nostalgia enabled by my long and detailed “meal memory.”

There’s a little restaurant that figures heavily in my meal memory since it’s one of the places that my Bin took me to way back when he was wooing me. It’s a restaurant furnished in old wood illuminated only by the soft glow of candles and small lamps. Of course in those heady days of romance and raging hormones, every place is memorable but La Copa proved even more so.

La Copa opened in 1984 and the story told to me is that it was owned by airline pilots who took advantage of their travels (and liberal baggage allowances, I assume!) to bring home steaks. Knowing that, it made sense for the restaurant to open near the airport within the Nayong Pilipino theme park, the site of my first visit in 1995. After several years there, it moved to a location somewhat dubiously described as “near the Domestic Airport.” La Copa is still currently situated near the airport, but it’s moved again to one of the commercial strips that line Ninoy Aquino Avenue. In the multitude of places that my Bin and I have frequented in our 12 years of marriage, La Copa never strayed far from our minds but somehow, we never got around to going back. But today is my Bin’s birthday and where better to celebrate than there?

The darkness engulfs us as we come in from the glaring sunlight outside. Our eyes swiftly adjust to the dim interior and my nose picks up on that long-forgotten but quickly familiar smell of old wood. I realize it’s a scent similar to the air that pervades wood shops in Baguio and Mario’s restaurants. Ah, it’s the smell of the wooden bowls used in their famed Caesar salad, I recall now. Tables are properly set with cloth napkins and candles and the sincerity of what I call the holy trinity of bottled seasonings: Knorr, A-1 Steak Sauce, Lea & Perrins. We wish you a good meal, they seem to be saying. Service is solicitous.

La Copa is known for a number of dishes, first and foremost of which is their Caesar Salad (P175). Simply put, there’s no other salad in Manila even close to it. Made just a few tables away, my Bin and I watch the waiter thrash whole garlic cloves into a paste with anchovies. The stage is a gigantic square wooden bowl gleaming even in the subdued light, its hairline cracks and marred surface evidence of the spectacular salads that emerge from its oily depths. I read that when making Caesar salad, a capacious bowl is required so that there’s plenty of room to thoroughly mix the salad in the dressing; and the advantage of using a wooden bowl specifically, is that the bowl over time, becomes infused with the garlic.

The waiter adds a few drops of Lea & Perrins to the anchovy-garlic paste followed by a scoop of a viscous ivory substance tinged with yellow. This is the dressing itself, an emulsification of egg yolks and virgin olive (or vegetable) oil seasoned with salt and lemon juice. The waiter gamely agrees to my Bin’s request for another scoop of dressing. When the mixture is properly velvety, the leaves of lettuce go in, some of them still beaded with drops of dew. The restaurant must go through an inordinate amount of the greens — while we’re there, a lettuce delivery is made, the heads of green bobbing, glinting through their plastic sacks.

Served in a square wooden receptacle, La Copa’s Caesar salad is a bowl of bounty: large leaves of iceberg lettuce coated in an – and there’s no better word for this – unctuous dressing yellowed by yolks. Toasted crouton squares gambol in this landscape of lightest green showered by a smattering of Parmesan cheese, the paleness riddled only by the red of minced bacon. A fork seems like a mighty miniscule utensil right now but cutting up the leaves makes everything more manageable. Still, the sizable leaf that’s escaped the knife’s sharpness laps at my cheek en route to my mouth, its kiss leaving a sloppy, saucy mark; they’re almost slippery in their creaminess. Crunchcrunch go the leaves against my teeth, the action igniting whips of garlic on my tongue, the anchovies sally forth, their saltiness so stimulating that the insides of my cheeks pucker. I look over and see that my Bin is practically levitating in excitement: cheeks flushed, eyes shining, all due to a remembered meal made real once again. Hail Caesar!

La Copa serves just-warmed, old-style pandesal that goes perfectly with slabs of margarine. Don’t complain — butter would be out of place here.

Every meal’s debut at La Copa is made outstanding with the Caesar Salad but there are heaps of other good things to eat. Browsing through the menu, I’ve forgotten just how expansive the menu is. I highly recommend the Steak a la Pobre (P325), a sufficiently peppery dish that pays homage to La Copa’s reason for being as well as any of the other steaks, as long as you don’t ask [for it] to be cooked well-done; you’ll get a much-deserved hardwood plank otherwise. The paellas (P445) are popular too as are the other Spanish dishes but tame your expectations – this isn’t Alba’s after all. Other good things to consider are the Baked Oysters in White Wine (P225), Gambas (P255), Chicken Cordon Bleau (P280; spelling theirs), and the Salmon or Blue marlin a la Parilla, a fish fillet doused in lemon-butter sauce.

My Bin and I are torn among all the things we want to order (so many memories!) but finally decide on the Salpicao (P225) and Chicken a la Kiev (P280). There’s also garlic rice, charmingly formed little mounds of moist rice mottled with toasted garlic. The salpicao is an appetizer portion, the meat tender and juicy with a sauce rich in Worcestershire sauce and butter. My Bin expresses preference for the salpicao at Whistlestop but his plate is wiped clean nevertheless. My chicken a la kiev is a joyous little thing, a deboned chicken leg dredged and deep-fried, and squirting a pool of butter in protest upon being pierced. The accompanying lumpy mashed potatoes are charmingly rustic. This chicken a la kiev reminds me of the same dish at the much-lamented Full House along Katipunan Avenue, where plates of it were eaten by me and other hungry students clutching bottles of a nameless liquid seasoning.

My Bin and I are full, both in stomach and memory, but one last reminiscence requests to be relived: Icy Hot Banana (P95). Really just banana fritters under an ice cream cover, it’s supposed to be crowned with nuts but today there is none, so chocolate syrup will have to do. This dessert is a straight sell: hot and cold, sweet and crunchy – what’s not to like?

My friends and I used to go to this place in the late 80’s – back when we were students and had an extremely limited allowance. We would stuff ourselves with the delicious pan de sal, share the caesar’s salad and steak then split the bill into 4 or 5 people. Thanks for reminding me of the fun times….

the food looks good, and i love caesar salad! it is quite far away from where i live though. i might actually plan for the trip, but nothing disappoints me more than a caesar salad made with iceberg lettuce. i feel that iceberg lettuce lends nothing to the flavor, compared with romaine. the table side service is a good touch though.

I soooo miss Full House! I love their Chicken a la Kiev and the Chicken Crepe (not sure if that’s what it’s called). I would eat there and not care if it came with sayote and some corn kernels. I enjoyed every bite of it.

I also like Sweet Inspirations. I think that’s still along Katipunan. Their tapsilog was yummy!

Wow. What a fantastic trip down food memory lane! I didn’t realize La Copa still existed. I first went there sometime in 1988 it must have been…a college date! And now that you’ve pointed it out, the caesar salad was indeed the best I’ve tasted in the whole of Manila. I have to check this place out again – this time with my family 🙂

Caesar salad used to be so popular in restaurants the 70’s–and yes, what stands out in memory is Mario’s. Then everyone learned how to make it at home, so it wasn’t too special anymore. And then the home recipes started to get abused a bit–too salty, too tart, too eggy. I just want the old-fashioned restaurant-made version. Thanks for this post.

Your post really brings out old wonderful memories for me also Lori. It’s become a family tradition, that whenever someone is going to or back to the US, we go to the airport, checkin the baggage then go out of the airport to eat at La Copa, as sort of a bon voyage meal. My parents were the ones who introduced me to La Copa, I think they also went there during one of their date nights when we were still little. During my Mom’s last visit here in the Philippines, we couldn’t find La Copa at “it’s last known location” so we had to forgo tradition. I’m so glad and ecstatic to know that La Copa is still alive and “near the airport” so for this year, the tradition will be revived and continued!
Thank you so much Lori!

I love La Copa. My parents used to take me there when the place was still inside Nayong Pilipino. I never stopped eating at this restaurant and followed them wherever they moved. I sure hope they stay put or open somewhere in the Makati area. The ceasar salad tastes good. It’s not the lettuce but it’s the dressing that makes it tasty. I suggest you try the Steak Charlemagne and Lobster Bisque next time. I call them plus the salad and the oysters with garlic in white wine comfort food =)

love La Copa! I used to work at Cebu Pacific Air across the street from it. There was no pedestrian overpass at the time and we would risk crossing Airport Road just so I and my bff Dianne could “splurge” on caesar salad, steak, vegetable soup (my fave, because the veggies are in crunchy, chunky bits), and icy hot banana at least once a week! It was always soothingly dark and cool, perfect for long talks (whatever irks/pains us at the time)over our “comfort lunch”! we actually prefer a longer wait for our food to be served because then the waiter would have to refill our pan de sal basket hehe. And yes, I had dinner with one of our pilots there once 😉

Hi Lori. I will try Copa one of these days when I’m in the Parañaque area.

As to Manila’s best Caesar’s Salad, my vote as of now (before trying Copa’s) goes to The Rotisserie (the Manila Pavilion’s fine dining restaurant) followed very very closely by Prince Albert (the Intercon’s fine dining restaurant).

These 2 Restaurants have had a long tradition of preparing good Caesar’s salad (table side, of course) — the Rotisserie since 1965 when the hotel was part of Manila’s first 5-star hotel, the Hilton; and Prince Albert in the late 60s when the Inter-Continental opened as Makati’s first hotel.

Zippo-
Judging from your 2 Caesar Salad standards, you’ll be disappointed with La Copa. It won’t match up. I suggest you go with an open mind and taste buds. And please don’t be snooty towards those leaves of iceberg lettuce.
–lori

Not at all snooty about my Caesar’s Salad. It’s just that my parents started to bring me and my sibs to these 2 restaurants at a young age which is why these 2 restaurants’ respective versions of Caesar’s Salad became my personal benchmarks. As to iceberg lettuce, both The Rotisserie and Prince Albert use iceberg lettuce for their Caesar’s Salad which, I believe, should be the kind of lettuce used for this particular type of salad. As to whether La Copa’s version will disappoint me, I still don’t know but trust me, when it comes to food, my mind is as wide as the opening of my huge stomach. I am the type of person who will, on a whim, drive 2 hours to partake of Pancit Puso (pancit with banana hearts as the sahog) at Aling Ika’s Carinderia at the Cavite City Market, or 3 hours to go to my favorite entresuelo hole-in-the-wall (Emong’s) in Lipa for the best steaming bulalo — both of which I hold in the highest of regard as much as a Kaiseki meal at Kikunoi in Kyoto or a full course at L’Astrance.

Re: La Copa, I have been told, by friends, to try their solomillo ala pobre and chicken ala kiev. I hold the solomillo ala pobre of Casa Marcos (circa 70s) and the chicken ala kiev of the Polo Club as my personal standards here in Manila. I’ll send you an e-mail of what I think of La Copa’s versions of these dishes, as well as the Caesar’s Salad, once I have had the privilege of eating there.

Yes, I remember LA Copa across Philippine Village hotel. My dad was friends with the cabin crew who owns it, so we knew where the meat came from.
I knew right away where the Ceasar Salad came from the photo on your home page. Could’nt be from anywhere else.

It was the “splurge” back in the 80’s and I would always love the wood and the ambience of the dark room with candles.

omg! I couldn’t agree more! When i saw the title of the article, i immediately thought of La Copa. But what are the chances, since i thought they’ve closed down. Imagine my suprise when i read the rest of your story. I have never tasted caesar salad as good as la copa’s. I thought they were already closed. Am so happy to know that they’re still running. Will def pay a visit soon! Ü

LA COPA… oh gilbert and i must visit soon. we used to live near there in Multinational Village. I also remember Alfredo’s Steak house along Tomas Morato since they prepare the ceasar salad in the same way.

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